Otto's head. It fastened itself like a collar about his neck.
Then Alexis picked Otto up with the picture round his neck and
threw him into the stream.

He floated!

My paladin!

He floated!

I could see his upturned face as he floated onwards down the
stream, through the meadow! It was full of deep resignation.

Then Alexis Alexovitch came to me and gathered me up in his arms
and carried me thus across the meadow--he is so tall and strong--
and whispered that he loved me, and that to-morrow he would shield
me from the world. He carried me thus to the house in his arms
among the grass and flowers; and there was my father, Ivan
Ivanovitch, and my mother, Katoosha Katooshavitch. And to-morrow
I am to marry Alexis. He had brought back from the inn my jewels
and my money, and he gave me again the diamond clasp that Otto had
taken from my waist.

How can I bear it? Alexis is to take me to Petersburg, and he has
bought a beautiful house in the Prospekt, and I am to live in it
with him, and we are to be rich, and I am to be presented at the
Court of Nicholas Romanoff and his wife. Ah! Is it not dreadful?

And I can only think of Otto floating down the stream with the
easel about his neck. From the little river he will float into